Just Odds and Ends

Eclipse

He started at the figure in the dark. "Who are you? How did you get here?"

The woman, crouching in the rafters, the silhouette of a gun in her hand, eyes barely visible under her hood as she spoke, her voice low and raspy. "I am your shadow. I am your death." 

She paused a moment as she hopped down to him, bringing herself into his full view as she pressed a gun to the President's head. She was dressed in the attire of an assassin, he knew from the many that had come for him and failed. But something here- something told him he may not survive this encounter. 

She spoke again, her russian slow and steady, a native speaker. "I've studied you for a long time, you know. You seem quite different in the flesh then you do on paper. Less noble, less courageous. Though I suppose we all do in times like these."

She stalked around him, her shoes quiet on the hardwood floors. He feared to move a single muscle, lest the gun at his temple go 'click'.

"I know what you're thinking. Behind those scared blue eyes of yours, your life flashing in front of you. You won't be able to escape, you know. I know how you think, Vitya, I know what you will do before the thought occurs to you."

His fcae betrayed his shock as she continued "I can predict you, play you, be you." As she said the last words, he thought for a second that she mirrored him in body and face before she moved again. 

"And for that I thank you, for being a most predictable target. From what I've been taught, you've outsmarted death for years, swerving past every danger. But fate meets you here. Death has finally caught up." She paused, and for a moment, he felt the force of her belief in whatever cause had driven her here so strongly it emanated from her. 

Then she continued once more, a smile on her face "And he has promised you one inescapable outcome: You will die at my hands. Here, and absolutely. ...Goodbye."

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